22 Airway Heights inmates believed to be on drugs since Friday

Twenty-two inmates at Airway Heights Corrections Center were determined to be under the influence of drugs since Friday, with eight of them given Narcan for a possible overdose, according to the Washington State Department of Corrections. Officials at the men’s prison discovered drugs in 17 different cells.

No one died, no one was taken to the hospital and no one has been charged as local authorities investigate, said Chris Wright, state corrections communications director.

The Airway Heights Police Department could not be reached by phone Wednesday.

Wright said the Department of Corrections is investigating what drugs the inmates were alleged to have used and how they were introduced into the facility.

Narcan, or naloxone, can rapidly reverse opioid overdoses.

In 2024, the department deployed five drug dogs, including three who can sniff out fentanyl, to prisons, jails and law enforcement agencies, to combat the opioid crisis, according to a department news release at that time. One of the dogs went to work for Airway Heights police.

In addition to drug dogs, the state corrections agency also made sure the opioid treatment drug Narcan was stocked in prisons, increased training for staff on how to prevent and treat fentanyl and other drug overdoses, and launched a body scanner pilot program to detect contraband, the release said.

Overdoses at jails and prisons is nothing new.

Six Kootenai County Jail inmates were taken to the hospital on one day in December after they showed signs of overdosing on fentanyl, the sheriff’s office said at the time. All six returned to the jail after treatment at the hospital.

Sheriff’s officials said they suspected the drug was mailed into the jail.

In response to the overdoses, the sheriff’s office changed, effective last month, how it receives mail at the facility, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. The jail now accepts sealed legal mail only when delivered through the U.S. Postal Service. Previously, sealed legal mail could be delivered to the jail front desk.

A week after the Kootenai County jail overdoses, two Spokane County Jail inmates were suspected of overdosing and dying within an hour of each other. A third inmate also overdosed but survived.

Spokane County Detention Services deployed Narcan 38 times in 2025 through mid-December, according to a county spokesperson at the time. The department needed to hospitalize 35 inmates because of apparent overdose signs in 2025.